Pen top (pen type of notebook) computers are being used in ever increasing numbers to enable users to enter and save handwritten information into computers and display the entered information on computer monitors. In the field of medicine, for example, doctors and nurses may use a pen top computer when consulting with patients in order to enter handwritten patient information into the computer. Since pen top computers and portable display tablets weigh a fraction of other types of computers, they can be used in a wide variety of applications by users who may not have access to a regular type of keyboard or who do not feel comfortable in using a keyboard. Policemen may use these types of devices at an accident scene to enter information into a computer by directly writing accident data on the digitizing surface of the tablet. This writing can then be displayed on the tablet screen and saved into a computer data-base or file. In yet another application, salespersons may use pen top computers when calling on customers so that ordering information may be written by hand on the device and displayed to the ordering customer for confirmation, including his/her signature. This information is saved to a database for subsequent display or printing. In the legal field, pen top computers are used for courtroom notetaking or editing existing documents. Often personal shorthands are used in these contexts.
Pen top computers enable users to directly write alphanumeric and pictographic (e.g. Kanji) characters onto the computer's digitizing surface. The handwritten characters are entered into the devices and displayed on the device monitor. Typically, such systems have a tablet type surface in combination with a stylus. The stylus generally has a configuration similar to pens and pencils so as to provide a natural feel and balance to the same user. A user, employing the stylus, applies the tip of the stylus to the tablet's digitizing surface and writes alphanumeric or pictographic characters on this surface much in the same manner as using an ink pen to write on a tablet. Typically, the stylus strokes on the tablet are captured and digitized by the device processor which then reproduces the strokes on the tablet as sample dots interconnected by straight lines. The appearance and feel is the same as if the user were writing on a sheet of paper with an ink pen.
A problem arises in that the handwritten data is not in a form compatible with current computer data-base information storage structures and is not recognizable by the computer as textual data. The computer not only cannot recognize legible handwritten information as textual data, but it cannot recognize illegible handwritten information, abbreviations, and personal shorthand codes as textual data. Moreover, the handwritten data may be entered in a language, such as English, German, Russian, or Japanese, complicating the problem of recognizing the handwritten data as actual text. Handwriting systems have been developed that recognize block printing and some have been developed that recognize connective cursive writing. These systems, however, are "iconic" systems and usually perform poorly. An iconic recognition system is one that looks for particular shapes, such as the shape of an "A" or the shape of a "T", thus requiring the user to write a certain way in order to have the computer system recognize the writing with any degree of reasonable accuracy. With the wide variety of handwriting styles that exist in the general population, such iconic systems have proven to be of questionable value. They are also not applicable beyond their narrow domain of a single language, e.g. English handwriting recognition, and are totally unusable for recognizing abbreviations or custom user shorthands. A recognition process, whereby the handwritten text (be it printed, cursive, mixed printed and cursive, abbreviations, or personal shorthand codes in any language) is convened into computer readable textual data, and one that dynamically learns the user's own handwriting, is needed in order to store the handwritten entered data in computer data-bases in a format that is readable and reproducible by the computer.